Origins

As I think I've noted here previously, I'm the first person in my immediate family to have gone to college. One of the areas that affected was my knowledge about what it meant to go to college and how financial aid worked.

At the end of my high school years, I applied to two schools. Only one made me a speedy offer, and because I didn't know better, I assumed that meant only one would. And so it was to that school that I went for what was, largely, a miserable four years as an undergraduate. As I've told many people, if you'd asked me on the day of my undergraduate graduation if I'd ever go back to school, I'd have socked you in the mouth. But eventually I did go back.

Now, the infamous Job 2 is in the same place as the school I applied to but didn't attend way back when. And that place has become, more or less, "the one that got away" which is part of what has made this process so absurdly hard for me to navigate.